Between Worlds written by DESTINY5611

i. COVER & TITLE

Although I think your cover is pretty good, I don't think it's great. It's not quite as colourful or captivating as it could be, and I'm not a huge fan of the fonts used—simply because it doesn't scream professional. I'd recommend looking for a new cover through one of the wonderful shops in my resources reading list. If you go this route, try thinking of ways to make your cover a little more eye-catching and exciting—and a little more genre-related.

"Between Words' is good, but again, I don't think it's great. It's simple, but it reaches territory that is a little unoriginal since a lot of stories exist in a 'between two worlds' kind of narrative. My suggestion (that I'm admittedly quite proud of) is 'The Wall Between Worlds.' It's a little more ominous and gets us thinking a little more about the plot of this story. Another fun one: 'The Wall at the End of the Alley.' A little long, a little bit of a mouthful, but something to boost some ideas.

ii. BLURB

With few exceptions, I usually advise against the use of story dialogue in blurbs. It's part preference, as I want something clean to get me started, but there is logic to it as well. For one, the space you have to entice readers is so small, it's not ideal to waste it on dialogue. The dialogue just doesn't give us as much information as actual narration will, and it is usually less impactful when we don't know the characters or what drives them yet.

So I think you should take out the dialogue, but incorporate one of the lines into a hook for the actual blurb. Then I think you could do with some cleaning up and creating of a more linear timeline to your blurb—something easy to follow. We do want blurbs to be unique and a little odd to draw attention, but we want them to be straightforward and easy to read. In addition, I would recommend using present tense in your blurb, as I think it would work really well in your situation. Here's my rewrite:

There is something off about this wall.

It's not just the place Amy's mother was met with an accident. It's a place where an abnormally strange feeling grows. Not because of what happened at the wall, but because of what happened after. First, the accident, then the disappearance of her father, then the unanswered calls and the secrets.

Despite hoping for a break from torture after finishing high school, Amy is desperately drawn to the wall at the end of the alley. Something happened here, and Amy has decided to find out what. As one revelation unfolds another, she finds herself lost in a spiral of mystery and confusion, realizing she may just have to put her life on the line to find out what it all means.

This blurb—while still arguably pretty good—isn't ideal for the reason that we don't really get a lot of information concerning the overall plot. I would highly recommend adding in just a little bit of what actually happens to give readers an idea of what they're getting into.

0 9 / 1 5

i. PUNCTUATION

#1: COMMAS

You overuse the comma a little, which bothers me a lot more than it would most likely bother the average reader. But that's what I'm here for—to annoy you over the little things.

Basically, you just use commas to separate clauses where you don't need to. A clause is something that contains both a subject and a verb, and they should be separated from other clauses by commas, but not from themselves. Here's an example:

'I stopped myself, my mouth slowly opening in horror, as I realized what I was really looking at.'

The clause that's being interrupted is 'my mouth slowly opening in horror as I realized what I was really looking at.' The first clause 'I stopped myself' is fine on its own, containing both its subject and verb. But 'my mouth slowly opening in horror' is not its own clause and therefore needs to be connected to the last part with no comma. (I know 'as' is a little bit of a weird conjunction, and different rules apply to it. The easiest way to tackle the conjunction 'as'—if it's being used in a way that is synonymous with 'at the same times as', view it as any other word. If it's being used in a way that is synonymous with 'because', view it as a conjunction that is connecting clauses. Correction:

'I stopped myself, my mouth slowly opening in horror as I realized what I was really looking at.'

Another example here:

'I bent down on my knees on the cold bricks, and clutched her shoulders, forcing her to look up.'

Again, you're interrupting clauses with that comma before 'and'. Since 'and' is always a conjunction, we can solve this problem easily. If both the clauses being connected with the conjunction are independent, then a comma goes before it. But here, where 'clutched her shoulders' is not an independent clause, you would not use the comma. Correction:

'I bent down on my knees on the cold bricks and clutched her shoulders, forcing her to look up.'

#2: THE DASH

Like many, you use the wrong dash. I know dashes seem like something that doesn't affect writing much, but using the correct form of punctuation is an easy way to establish yourself as a knowledgeable writer, and come off that way to readers.

You use the hyphen in place of the em dash.

The hyphen is one click of the dash, (-) and is used to hyphenate words like father-in-law.

The em dash is two elongated clicks of the dash, (—) and is used to interrupt dialogue or narration.

ii. DIALOGUE

Oddly enough, your dialogue tags are nearly perfect, but you're using single quotations instead of double. I know this can be a weird formatting in some countries, but I'm not familiar with it as an accepted style in creative writing. Better to use double quotations around all lines of dialogue in order to establish it as such.

1 0 / 1 5

i. PACING

In my opinion, the beginning of your story needs to be reorganized. For one, I think the prologue is entirely unnecessary. It's cool, but it doesn't add anything. Take it out, then take out the 'one week ago' beginning to chapter one. By beginning with a time jump, you're insinuating that your story hasn't exactly begun yet, and that's not great for convincing readers to stay.

However, I don't think your story starts in the right place at all. You begin it right in the midst of terror and action, which is powerful, but the problem lies in the fact that you want us to feel for Amy—you want us to feel her panic over her injured mother. But we've never met Amy's mother before this instance, and we don't understand her relationship with Amy. Therefore, this panic Amy is experiencing in the first chapter is something we readers can't quite relate to yet. Because of this, your pacing comes off as really quick and rushed.

Truthfully, I think you're better off starting your story during Amy's last exam. Have her finish it, have her come home, have a conversation with her mother to establish that relationship, then have her take the nap and wake up—all in the same chapter. I think this will get rid of the pacing issue I've mentioned above. Another suggestion, if the one above seems a little uninteresting—start the story off with Amy, dazed and waiting for word from her mother's doctor. She can go through what happened in her head, and that way you can include both parallels from now and then without beginning the story in such an abrupt way.

ii. TRANSITIONS

Your hooks are excellent, and I love them with my whole heart. But the transitions of your story from scene to scene are hard to follow and a little jarring. They jump around a lot from past experiences and revelations to the now, which can be exhausting to most readers, and it was for me. Truly, your story should resemble a timeline that is easy to follow. This happens, which leads to this. Backstory is very much essential to your character, but yours can be vastly shortened and smoothened into the timeline of your story.

0 6 / 1 0

i. CHARACTERS

We don't get a lot of information on your characters, nor your descriptions of them. You mention Amy has brown hair in the prologue, then again in the first chapter. I'd like to float if that information is essential—or if it's more essential than, say, Amy's tendency to overreact or her calm head under pressure. Brown hair doesn't really construct an image of Amy to us. Things like habits, tendencies, and odd descriptions are what stick out to us more so than the colour of a character's hair. The shape of their nails—because they either hate getting chips or they simply don't care. The state of their room—messy or clean. That's what we should hear. It's awesome to have physical descriptions as well, but not quite as essential as some of the other aspects you seem to be missing.

ii. SCENES

I think you've got this down pretty well. You describe the hospital very well, and you've begun to sprinkle in the description as the scene progressed starting with the second chapter. I much prefer the natural flow of that in comparison with the aggressive descriptions of the first chapter, which I think can be toned down. But you're avoiding dumping the description, and you're doing it better than most.

0 7 / 1 0

i. PLOT

I'm really intrigued with your plot for numerous reasons. One, it's absolutely absurd and confusing in a way that is straightforward. Two, it's so original, and so captivating. The wall? The injury? The password? The phone numbers? The cryptic neighbours, the odd flashbacks. You've pulled it together very well. I can't think of ways to make your plot any more intriguing than it already is.

ii. TONE

I like Amy, but I just don't feel like I've had the chance to know her. She's already mystery-solving, already so deep into plot hashing, but I just don't really know who she is yet. So although I like the way you write her, I just can't really seem to care about her life without knowing who she really is. Her characterizations could be improved with the reorganization of the beginning of the story, as well as more detail about who she is, where she wants her life to go, and her relationships with those around her.

0 8 / 1 0

Your logistics and your plot—in my opinion, the most important aspects of a story—are your strongest areas. However, the (for lack of a better word) messiness of your flow is a little hard to navigate. Consider writing out a timeline for your beginning chapters and delving into the best way to move it along in a way that is straightforward at the same time as it is intriguing. Again, you have a lovely, intricate plot that I think will go far.

4 0 / 6 0